The goal of Girls Health is to "promote healthy, positive behaviors in girls between the ages of 10 and 16." The site addresses issues all young teenage girls face. It provides constructive advice on a number of health issues such as; body changes, nutrition, relationships, bullying, Internet safety, drugs, alcohol, and smoking. There are separate sections for educators and parents that include additional links and materials free to download. In 2008, Girls Health won the Aesculapius (Greek god of healing) Award of Excellence.

In the Classroom

Girls Health's "Body" page is a great resource to support a reproductive health class. Make sure your guidance counselor knows about this site. Project this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Demonstrate how to navigate the site and then ask students to research various content areas in small groups or independently. Students can find the definition to key terms in the text by following their direct link to the glossary. Use the Drugs, Alcohol, and Smoking as a reliable source during Red Ribbon Week. Use this site as an anticipatory set or "activator" to introduce a unit on drugs. Ask the class to take an on-line quiz to determine what students already know about drugs and what misconceptions they may have. This site is an excellent resource to have students' access during Red Ribbon week. They can create a multimedia presentation to define various drugs and reveal the harmful effects they have on the body. Consider having students create a drug prevention booklet with PocketMod (reviewed here) from the information they learn.

Its time to get a little gross but have a lot of fun! This site allows students to explore, classify, and learn about various kinds of animal poop. After being shown 3 choices of poop, try to guess the animal it belongs to. You will learn about each animal, what it eats, and finally find out if you guessed correctly. You can even print out a poop expert certificate! This site is sure to create interest and excitement in your classroom. NOTE: Due to great popularity, this site can be VERY slow to open. Be patient!

In the Classroom

Use this site as an anticipatory set or "activator" to introduce a unit on the digestive system or farm animals on a projector or interactive whiteboard (sure to get some giggles). After playing the online game take a "field trip" to the school's playground to find other examples of animal poop and encourage students to label where they came from.

This collection of reviewed resources from TeachersFirst is selected to help students learn their most effective study strategies. The collection includes specific study tools, reading strategies, review ideas, and notetaking methods that students and teachers can try as lessons in themselves or --even better-- as they go about the regular curriculum. Whether you want to use a graphic organizer, create your own electronic flash cards, or simply learn how to approach a test, there is a resource to help. Learning Support teachers and teachers of gifted will also want to share these alternate ways for students to organize and retain concepts, vocabulary, and more.

In the Classroom

Make learning how to learn part of your class routine at any grade level and in any subject. Feature one or more new study strategy each month and share this entire list as a link from your class web page for students and parents to access both in and out of school.

As part of their extensive site for vocabulary, roots, and more, Vocabulary.com has added a themed area for health and nutrition. Find interactive vocabulary activities using nutrition-related (not limited to nutrition) vocabulary words. You will also find printable crosswords, fill in the blanks and more, all using the same 18 theme words. This and other "themes" available on the site will make vocabulary development fun.

In the Classroom

Have students work in cooperative learning groups, divide up the vocabulary words, and have each group find the definitions for their assigned vocabulary words. Have the groups share their words and definitions in an online book, using a tool such as Bookemon (reviewed here). Have the groups share the online books on your interactive whiteboard or projector. If you don't have the time to complete online books, have students share the definitions using a class wiki. Be sure to also check out the interactive word puzzles!

Sometimes you just need to memorize certain facts and Memorize.com provides the easy to use resources to get the job done. The format of this site is simple and easily accessible to all. Choose pre-made flash cards or create your own. If you choose to create your own, you can create an account or let the system create one for you. Options to switch between flashcard, multiple choice, and matching formats are provided. Diagrams and explanatory text can also be included with your choices.

In the Classroom

Join the site or let them create an account for you -- but be sure you remember that username, etc. so you can access it again! (email required). Read through the various options or use their "wizards" to create materials.

Create materials for review and practice with basic information, terms, and more. Students can collect and save rows or information they missed to aid with their learning. Ask your students to create their own flashcards or memory set to review before a test or quiz. Have students make practice materials for each other, as well. Learning support teachers will find their students enjoy reviewing more if they are creating something themselves, and the process of MAKING the cards is actually a review in itself.

Share this link on your website for parents to review with their student. This format is very flexible and can be used to create materials for everything from math to Social Studies.

This site hosts 16 Olympics-related videos from NSF and NBC. Learn about the science of the Olympics available without a membership. Any science teacher can find something related to your curriculum: from Newton's Laws of motion, to concepts of physics, chemistry, biomechanics, and physiology. Math teachers can also find applied math concepts from basic arithmetic to calculus.

In the Classroom

Share these videos on an interactive whiteboard or projector, being sure to have student use the whiteboard tools as you pause the video so students can draw lines to illustrate forces and other concepts. Have student groups watch different videos and report back on the theoretical science AND the actual results from that sport, connecting the science concepts to the actual results they see in competition. Even younger students can benefit from the videos as an overview of more advanced concepts, provided you preview vocabulary, then stop and discuss more challenging words during the video. Your students will want the link to this site, so share it on your class web page. You can also embed the videos right in your web page, blog, or wiki. Have students write about the embedded piece, adding their own commentary of the actual Olympics based on the video.

This lively interactive simulation of hip resurfacing surgery is a great way to learn about surgery, science, and health. Edheads does a great job of tying the cartooned simulation to real life surgery by offering photos of actual surgeries. There is also a glossary, video, and a Teacher's Guide (with lots of tips for using this tool).

In the Classroom

Use this site on the interactive whiteboard or projector to introduce the topic. Have students work with partners to complete the activity. Following the activity, start a conversation asking "why" questions to reinforce the function of the different muscles and techniques involved in the surgery. Have students (and partners) create multimedia presentations to share with the class. Have students create videos and share them using a tool such as SchoolTube reviewed here. This simulation would also be helpful for students doing exploration projects about careers in medicine.

Use the resources on Project Wet to create awareness and learn more about water as an important resource for our planet. View resources by topics such as "Wetlands," "Oceans," and "Natural Disasters," among others. Click on "Use Project WET" or the icons along the bottom to view resources by teachers, student, and parents. View "News and Events," read blog posts, and find a variety of great resources on this site. There are interactive games about hydration and the water cycle in the "Children and Young Adults" area. Advise students to avoid the store link along the top as well as other ads that may appear along the sides of the site.

In the Classroom

Assign students to groups where various water issues can be identified and reported upon to the rest of the class. Use the water issue to find where it exists around the world and the common water problems facing communities and cultures today. Use the interactive water games to reinforce concepts about the water cycle and more. Note that games require some reading, so partner emergent readers with a buddy to help. Have students use a mapping tool such as Mapskip (reviewed here) to create maps of the "wet" locations they research or learn about (with audio stories and pictures included)! Be sure to identify water issues that may also be present in your own area. Students can create a multimedia or conventional display that showcases information learned. Students may decide to create a community awareness project to showcase their information. Read case studies to view project activities around the world.

Chop pieces of You Tube videos easily and effortlessly in as little as a few steps. Quickly share your chopped video by providing a URL link or using the embed code in a wiki, blog, or other site. View easy instructions and examples of chopped videos on the front page of the site.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

No registration is needed to use this free, web based application. Users need to be able to find an appropriate You Tube video and know where the start and end times of the portion they wish to cut. If more than one portion is wanted from the video (i.e. remove the whole middle), users will have to create two chopped segments which can be posted separately.

First, select the video you want to use. If the URL is not known, no problem. Search for the video within TubeChop itself. Once the video is selected, click the "Chop" button. Select the part you want by dragging the two black sliders that appear under the video to choose the desired start and end times of your chopped piece. It is helpful to note the time markers when you are previewing the original video and then move the markers to those points.
Once your chopped piece has been chosen, simply click "Chop it." The chopped video appears with its own Tubechop link. Copy the embed code to share the video on your blog or website. The embed code is easily entered on a wiki as well.

If YouTube is blocked in your district, Tubechop videos will not show, either, since they are "pulled" from YouTube. Check school access before you plan to use TubeChop! (When tested in a district that blocks You Tube, the actual Tube Chop video did not play.) Be sure to check District policy about use of You Tube videos. Even if YouTube is not filtered, as with all resources used in the classroom, be sure to preview the appropriateness of the video before using in the classroom. TubeChop removes unwanted material whether inappropriate or not needed for that particular lesson.

Choose only portions needed for use in that particular lesson or remove unwanted portions that are inappropriate (or boring!) Create little clips to use as a webquest. Though it is time consuming, it would be easier for younger students to focus on smaller pieces of video to locate information. Chop small pieces of video for use as writing prompts for essays, creative writing, or blog posts. Chop portions of videos showing different viewpoints or arguments to any scientific, political, economic, or historical event. Use in the Arts to showcase music, dance, art, or other creative pursuits. Use chopped portions of video footage captured by the public to compare with news accounts to uncover bias and discuss perspective.

Edge Features:

Comments

TubeChop is a great tool to select one part of some YouTube video, but if you are interested in selecting multiple parts of the same video, then you will need something else.
I've found www.vibby.com to be great for this purpose - and it even allows annotating and commenting each specific part!Toni, , Grades: 0 - 12

Looking for an online museum exhibit for a specific subject? Want to broaden your students' perspectives on what resources are available to them? If the answer is yes, this is a great site for you. There are 1000's of museums listed by topic and search able by term. The site includes science, history, art, world, and USA museums. Don't miss the "Fun" link. There you will find some interesting museum topics such as American Immigration Data, Darwinia + Evolution, Hot Wheels Collectors Virtual Museum, White House + Presidential History, and several others.

In the Classroom

Plan virtual field trips for your students, or put the research in their hands and have them create their own online field trips. Have them post their trip to the classroom wiki. Follow up by requiring students to try out other students trips. Not comfortable with wikis? Have no wiki worries - check out the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-Through. Or, have students view online exhibits from the site, and then have them create their own exhibits.

This European site features nutrition information in interactive format for two age groups: Kidz (ages 6-12) and ADOZ (ages 13-19). The KIDZ area features topics such as "Brain Food," "Nutrition Quiz," "Body Fit," "Safe Food," and "What's a Label?" The ADOZ section delves deeper into the same topics and more, including "Emotions and Eating" and "Food Myths." The nutrition information included in the site is from EUFIC but closely parallels comparable literature from the USDA and other US agencies. There is a "School and Parents" section with teacher's guides and background information about the site. You may want to turn down your speakers to avoid the intro music in each area. If you have speakers of European languages other than English, return to the coolfood home to select a different "flag" for another language.

In the Classroom

Share the interactive quizzes and activities on an interactive whiteboard or projector to spark interest and assess prior knowledge at the start of your nutrition unit. Have student groups investigate food myths, facts, and more, then create their own online "Infoodmation" posters using a tool such as Glogster, reviewed here. Or have students create visual menus for balanced eating on a class wiki. Not comfortable with wikis? Have no wiki worries - check out the TeachersFirst's Wiki Walk-Through.

See remarkable and astounding scientific discoveries and inventions on this amazing site. Categories of science include Earth and Nature, Energy and Power, Medical Marvels, New Materials, Quantum Leaps, Space and Time, Science Fiction, and Weird Science. Young scientists will be amazed, engineers inspired, and even the disinterested will find accomplishments to make them curious. Even middle school girls will find something that they like about science on this site. There is some advertising, but the science images and information outweigh it.

In the Classroom

Share selected discoveries or a science-in-real-life scenario at least weekly on a projector or interactive whiteboard. Watch the site for real world examples of your current unit or award extra credit to students who lurk on this site to find such connections. Just as your social studies colleagues assign students to write up a current event each week, you can assign students to write a blog post or brief explanation of a recent find on your class wiki. Be sure to include this link on your class web page for students to access both in and out of class, and be sure to include it in your emergency sub plans for students to find and explain an accomplishment of a real scientist found here. If you do a unit on science careers, this is a definite source for student projects. Why not have students create a Glog on a branch of science that interests them after exploring this site? Read a review of Glogster here.

Random Facts offers exactly what it says, with one featured fact and several lists of "most popular facts" and "newest facts" in the sidebar. Since "popular facts" can include some classroom-inappropriate topics (love-marriage, kissing, marijuana), you may want to limit your use of this site to the teacher, but you can find many facts to use as ideas for the day, tidbits for research, and more on this site. Familiarize yourself with fact lists that connect to your curriculum, such as health facts, fast food facts, human body, U.S. presidents, and various animal fact lists. The "next fact" button yields both interesting and surprising information, always displayed with a link to a further list of related facts. Advertisements are included on the home page and sidebars of fact lists. Each list includes a complete list of references and footnotes indicating the source from that list.

In the Classroom

Share a current events or curriculum-related fact list or single fact on a projector or interactive whiteboard at the start of class to start the wheels turning. Or list three facts from a list along with a myth, asking students to use clickers or hands to indicate their vote for the bogus "fact." Have students create similar "fact lists" as a first step in researching a topic, before moving to presenting comparisons, connections, or explanations of WHY these facts are true. Use the reference lists as examples so students understand why sources matter. Have them try searching some of the facts and look for further, deeper information from the same sources. Use a class wiki to generate a 99 fact list on your current unit topic once students have seen a few examples.

Create authentic-looking magazine covers sure to attract double-takes. Simply upload a photo to create your cover. If you do not need to SAVE the photo for online access later, you do not even need to join the site. Covers you create can be downloaded as completed images or sent via email and other sharing tools (Facebook, etc). Photos can be uploaded from your files, Flickr, your website, or other photosharing sites. Fill in your desired text for the titles and sub-titles and choose colors for them. It's that simple. Click 'Create' at the bottom and you have a magazine cover that will leave others in awe. For more creative ideas using Big Huge Labs, go to the top of the page and click on Big Huge Labs Blog or Forum. Big Huge Labs offers MANY similar tools, such as Mapmaker, reviewed here. Of course, this site offers advanced options for a fee or with free registration, but neither is necessary.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

You need to know how to locate your photos on your computer or photo sharing site. Click the little white boxes to change text colors, etc. as you enter desired text. SAVE your completed cover when done. Be sure to give it a meaningful name if you are creating several covers on the same computer!

This collection of reviewed resources from TeachersFirst is selected to help teachers and students learn more about HIV and AIDS and to plan curriculum-related projects and classroom activities related to this sensitive but important topic. Whether you are teaching about the global economic impact of HIV and AIDS or simply helping students understand HIV and AIDS as a health topic, this list of reviewed resources and classroom ideas will provide a solid foundation.

In the Classroom

Find ideas and more as you plan for upcoming lessons on this powerful topic.

"This web site is dedicated to those individuals who see the world in different ways." Find activities, printables, and interactive games to help students with exceptionalities learn about basics, master organization, and deal with interpersonal challenges on this site. Many of the resources are useful for "regular ed" as well as special ed. Although the site includes items for sale, there are many lesson plans and interactives offered for free. See the Disabilities menu for quick explanations of various disabilities: OCD, Asperger's, Autism, PDD, Learning disabilities, and more. The Games menu offers interactives to help students learn position words (in/out/left/right, etc), facial expressions, emotions, time, first-then-next sequencing, synonyms/antonyms, and more. Check out the safety songs with animated illustrations (turn up your speakers!). The Get Organized menu has some terrific offerings, including an interactive Emotions Color Wheel.

In the Classroom

Although intended for students with special needs, this site would also be helpful for teaching basic English vocabulary (emotions, facial expressions, positions), for safety lessons during bus safety week, and for ESL/ELL learners. The many printables in the free areas will also help you teach basics of any primary classroom. Speech/Language teachers, emotional support teachers, and autistic support teachers will appreciate the many ways to share emotion words, including an interactive facial expression tool and the emotions color wheel. Many activities are well-suited for interactive whiteboard with the student navigating using his/her finger or touch tool. Others would make ideal learning centers at a classroom computer with headphones. Share this site with parents, as well, via a link on your class web page, since many of the activities bear repeating over and over.

What is Watch Know? Short for "You Watch, You Know," it provides explanations for students. Finding bits of information to help students can be frustrating as resources are disorganized on the web and may be hard to find." Watch Know" is a free site that organizes small video clips to help with the understanding of a variety of topics in subject areas. Search by age (3-18+). You can click and drag the age filter to the youngest and oldest ages to include. Videos are also organized by sequence of topics taught. The site is an ongoing project with input from educators and organizations interested in education of children. Registration is not required to view the videos. Creating and saving videos to the site, as well as commenting, require registration. You can monitor site recent changes and additions using the "Change Log."

In the Classroom

Search for videos relevant to your upcoming units or share the link with older students to search on their own. Use clips as engaging openings to units or as a review at the end. Have students identify the main points in the video and relate it back to class information. Students can use the examples on the site to create their own videos about a topic they have studied that could be beneficial to others.

If you do join the site to submit videos (for more adventurous technology users), we recommend uploading, commenting, and participating in the project (the creation and growth of WatchKnow) as a whole-class collaborative activity. If your students create videos, critique them locally before submitting them to the site as the "bests" from your class.

Learn about safety hazards throughout the home. View sections of the house such as Kitchen, Hallway, Pool and Spa, or Backyard. In each section, find safety concerns for Falls, Poisoning, Burns, Fires, Suffocation, and Electric Shock. Each concern contains an audio file and/or written information to outline the danger.

In the Classroom

This site is a terrific find for your safety unit or safety week. Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Or have cooperative learning groups investigate specific rooms together. Students can use this information to determine common household dangers. Students can use the information to create a visual or interactive online display of safety information. Use the information to create public service announcements, newsletters, or a mini lesson to present to the class, other classes, or parent groups. Have students create infomercials to share with the class using a tool such as SchoolTube reviewed here.

Use this site to find some GREAT word searches that are ready to go! Whatever topic you are looking for, you just might find a word search here. If you can't find one, make your OWN ONLINE word search. What a fantastic tool to use and/or create in any subject!

In the Classroom

Share the relevant word searches on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Have cooperative learning groups practice spelling or vocabulary words by creating their own word search. List this site on your class website for students to use both in and out of the classroom. This is a great one for those word search lovers in your class. Why not have students use a whole-class account to make their own word searches to challenge each other with new vocabulary and terms?